British designer Maddie Williams wins 2019 Redress Design Award

By

Barbara Santamaria

Published
Sep 9, 2019

Environmental charity Redress announced the winner of the 2019 edition of its fashion design competition at a Grand Final Show attended by 1,000 fashion VIPs and industry experts in Hong Kong on Thursday.

British designer Maddie Williams took home the top prize after presenting a collection of zero-waste pieces constructed using upcycling techniques and reclaimed textiles, yarns and second-hand clothing.

She was named the winner of the Redress Design Award 2019, receiving the opportunity to create an upcycled retail collection for sustainable fashion brand Reverb, which is owned by Chinese giant JNBY Group.

The emerging designer was selected from a pool of international finalists from Hong Kong, India, Australia, Canada, Israel, Spain and Germany by a panel of judges that included Tillmann Lauterbach, creative director of Reverb; Ruth Farrell, global marketing director of  textiles at Eastman; and Orsola de Castro from Fashion Revolution.

Now in its 9th cycle, the Redress competition aims to celebrate the work of sustainable designers and address the growing textile waste issue. According to the charity, the equivalent of one garbage truck of textiles is landfilled or burned globally every second, a practice that needs to stop if the fashion industry wants to be more sustainable.

“Curbing waste and carbon is critical. Waste is an urgent concern, especially in Asia, which is home to one of the fastest growing fashion consumer markets and where 50 percent of the world’s clothes are made. Redress is uniquely positioned to galvanise change and to inform the public about the dire need to make drastic changes in the fashion industry,” said Christina Dean, Redress founder.

International judge Tillmann Lauterbach, creative director at Reverb of JNBY Group, said: “Reverb is committed to making sustainable fashion go mainstream. Working with Maddie, we want to give consumers more access to desirable sustainable fashion, particularly in Asia, where waste is a tremendous issue that needs to be addressed immediately.”

This year’s competition attracted hundreds of applications from designers in 43 countries, and the finalists were taken on a 10-day journey where they were immersed in the fashion supply chain to examine potential disruption points and learn about new innovations to cement Hong Kong’s leading position in driving sustainability in fashion.

Other major prizes were awarded to Carina Roca Portella from Spain (The Redress Design Award 2019 Runner-up Prize with Orsola de Castro), Keith Chan (Hong Kong Best Prize Winner), Moriah Ardilla from Israel (People’s Choice Prize), and Julia Tolita Pagenkopf from Germany (the Alumni Prize with Vancouver Fashion Week and Mercedes-Benz Hong Kong).